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by jerf 6295 days ago
"Perhaps they didn't set the right limits, kept them too small. Because we failed to get it right once doesn't mean we should stop trying and just accept being ripped off as a cost of doing business."

Ah yes, the classic "I know I'm right and we just need to try harder and better and it'll work next time" argument.

The problem with that argument is that it is too powerful. It applies to everything, equally. Consequently, it's a null argument.

If you want to argue about this, you need to be more specific and not just wave this magical "Staples Easy button (TM)" at the problem.
1 comments
gnaritas 6295 days ago
As opposed to what, the classic let's just do nothing, bury our head in the sand, and hope the market failure that just fucked us six ways from Sunday just fixes itself?

I was proposing a specific solution, limiting the size of the banks so we keep our current system but not allowing it to get too dependent on any one bank to eliminate single points of failure. Perhaps you missed that part.

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jerf 6295 days ago
No, you proposed a solution, received an evidence-based response, and waved it away with what I described.

Because you make bad arguments does not imply that the only alternative is to do nothing, or that that is my opinion. That's just a non-sequitor.

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gnaritas 6295 days ago
I disagree. There were no specifics mentioned about how many branches banks were allowed to have during the previous attempt. For the sake of argument, if that number had been say 5, my reply was a perfectly logical rebuttal to that evidence. The outcome could have been vastly different if that limit had been 50.

My calling that into question doesn't mean "I know I'm right and I'm ignoring your evidence". Nor does the fact that a similar but not identical process been tried in the past infer that all such attempts with different constraints would fail in the future.

It's not a null argument, that's absurd. That's like saying we tried pay per click once on our site years ago, it didn't work, and holding that up as evidence that pay per click won't work for any site ever. My rebuttal was a valid response to the history cited.

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